At eight o'clock in the evening, Kyle arrived punctually at Snape's gloomy office.
With a cold expression, Snape pointed to a table next to his desk. The tabletop, as well as the area surrounding it, was filled with all sorts of basic potion ingredients.
"Tonight's lesson content consists of only one thing: learning how to process potion ingredients."
Kyle looked at the knives, mortars, cauldrons, and other equipment on the table, then looked at the large wooden buckets beside the table containing dead toads staring blankly, slimy slugs, plant roots covered in some unidentified black substance...
If he wasn't mistaken, those solidified unidentified black objects should be...
Dragon dung.
And the very fresh kind, too—produced no more than forty-eight hours ago.
Kyle felt unwell all over.
The old bat was doing this to get revenge on him, wasn't he?
After all, yesterday he had kited Snape all the way from the castle dungeons to the third floor. Not only had he tired Snape out like a dog, but he had also caused him to lose a significant amount of face.
Seeming to sense Kyle's thoughts, Snape spoke in a gloomy, sinister tone:
"No Potions Master can do without a solid foundation. If you want to learn Potions well, then obediently start by learning how to process potion ingredients."
He tossed over a tattered notebook. Kyle flipped through it; it recorded techniques for processing potion ingredients.
Many of these processing techniques differed somewhat from the potion textbooks they currently used.
If Kyle wasn't mistaken, these should be more effective, advanced methods that Snape had researched himself.
Fine! Let's do this!
Before starting, Kyle cast a Bubble-Head Charm on himself to block out the nauseating stench emitting from those messy animal ingredients, then sat down at the table with a tragic expression.
Anyone who didn't know better would think he was preparing to march heroically to the execution grounds.
"First, practice the cutting techniques," Snape reminded him as he watched Kyle prepare to reach for a toad.
Kyle's outstretched hand diverted to the daisy roots nearby.
Before picking up a daisy root, he first pointed his wand at it and cast Scourgify, cleaning off the dragon dung. Only then did he dare to reach out and pick it up.
Snape stared at Kyle's cutting technique, but surprisingly couldn't find any fault with it. He let out a cold snort.
Subsequently, Snape stopped watching Kyle, who was burying his head in cutting daisy roots, and returned to his own cauldron to continue his work brewing potions.
In the quiet office, only the bubbling sound of boiling potions and the rustling sound of a small knife cutting daisy roots remained.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
A loud noise suddenly shattered the silence.
Snape was startled by the sudden sound.
He whipped his head around, only to find Kyle holding a massive bone-cleaver, chopping away at the daisy roots in front of him.
A thick cutting board had appeared on the table at some point; the noise was coming from the collision of the bone-cleaver and the board.
Snape roared in anger, "What are you doing! Do you think this is your Hufflepuff kitchen?!"
Hearing Snape's words, the kitchen knife in Kyle's hand chopped down fiercely, the blade sinking halfway into the cutting board.
This violent action made Snape's eyelid twitch instantly.
He almost wanted to draw his wand for self-defense.
"Professor, I feel like the small knife is too inefficient. A kitchen knife is faster," Kyle explained calmly.
Snape's face turned pitch black. He walked to the table and casually picked up a handful of daisy roots to inspect them.
He discovered that the roots Kyle had cut with the kitchen knife were exactly the same size as those cut with a small knife. Apart from the size, the shape was also just right, perfectly meeting the standards for potion ingredients.
Moreover, using a kitchen knife meant he could cut a large handful in one go, whereas the silver knife could only cut them one by one.
This made Snape's face turn even darker.
"You don't need to practice cutting materials anymore," he placed a large basket of figs in front of Kyle. "Now practice peeling."
The method of using a kitchen knife to cut daisy roots had just opened the door to a new world for Kyle.
Why did he have to use conventional methods to process potion ingredients?
As long as the same result was achieved, any method was fine, right?
Didn't Snape also make certain improvements to the processing techniques in the potion textbooks?
Thinking of this, Kyle took out his wand.
Seeing Kyle take out his wand, Snape frowned deeply, ready to spew venom.
"Use that brain of yours, which isn't much smarter than a troll's, and think carefully—do you need a wand to peel figs?"
Kyle didn't get angry. He placed a fig on the table in front of him and raised his wand: "Sectumsempra."
An invisible blade flashed past. Kyle reached out and brushed it, and the fig skin was easily peeled off.
Snape's face twitched violently.
You're using Dark Magic to peel figs?
Is my Sectumsempra meant for you to do this shit?
Snape very much wanted to pry open Kyle's skull to see exactly how his neural circuits were wired.
Seeing Kyle pick up a second fig, Snape snatched the fruit from his hand and spoke with a voice devoid of emotion: "Switch to toads!"
The nature of the Dark Magic Sectumsempra would attach a cursing power to the wounds it left, which was also why it inhibited healing.
It didn't matter much for figs, but if used on a toad, it would render the toad unusable as an ingredient.
However, this didn't mean Kyle was out of options.
An invisible blade extended from the tip of his wand.
This time, Kyle didn't cast the Sectumsempra Snape had invented, but a variant of the Cutting Charm—the one he had Hasage'd in Professor Flitwick's Charms class.
With a gentle cut, he slit open the skin on the toad's back. Kyle dissipated the blade at the tip of his wand, then with a flick of the wand, he peeled out a completely hairless toad.
He didn't need to touch the toad directly at all during the process, which caused Snape's plan to prank him to fall through.
With a slap, a slimy slug was thrown onto the table in front of Kyle by Snape.
"Remove its innards, then steam it."
This was content they had learned in their first Potions class; Kyle knew it by heart.
Now that Snape was bringing it up again, Kyle absolutely didn't believe it wasn't just to gross him out.
However, Kyle wasn't without a solution.
Scourgify could be used as a Vanishing Spell to a certain extent. As long as the things to be cleaned were limited to the slug's innards, it could achieve a perfect processing effect.
In no time, Kyle finished processing a whole bucket of slugs, then began steaming them.
He used Transfiguration to conjure a large stack of bamboo steamers used for steaming buns. He arranged the slugs neatly inside the steamers, stacking them high, tier by tier, and then skillfully lit a fire.
Watching his office trending towards the style of a kitchen, Snape handed over another large pile of ingredients with a blank expression.
"Grind." Snape was concise.
Kyle glanced at the ingredients; they were snake fangs.
With a wave of his wand, the table beside him, which had been cleared, instantly transformed into a giant stone mill.
Kyle poured a large bag of snake fangs into it. Driven by magic, the stone mill began to turn automatically.
A moment later, Kyle scooped out a large ladle of snake fang powder from it.
Snape, whose eyes were twitching slightly, changed the material given to Kyle once again.
"Extract juice."
When Kyle used Transfiguration to conjure a juicer, Snape gave up the struggle.
"Get out. Come back tomorrow night at eight."
Looking at the stern Snape, Kyle didn't feel afraid at all; in fact, he wanted to laugh.
As he was leaving the office, Kyle suddenly stopped.
"Professor Snape..."
"What is it now?" The old bat's tone was impatient.
"You really should wash your hair." Before the old bat could react and fly into a rage, Kyle took to his heels and ran.
Only Kyle's voice remained echoing in the air: "I can still smell the grease on your head even from this far away!"
A Sectumsempra curse sliced directly through the office door.
After Kyle had gone far, Snape walked up to the damaged door with a dark face and cast a Mending Charm.
He regretted slightly that he hadn't been able to control his hand just now; great, now he had to recast the protective enchantments on the door.
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